10 Food Network Stars Who Faded From The Spotlight

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When Television Food Network launched in 1993, the concept of a celebrity chef was virtually non-existent. Many of its earliest shows were less chef-driven and more informative and educational, covering topics like how the corn crop was performing. As the network evolved and chefs began to understand the entertainment value of food, they became household names, and their cooking styles became brands in their own right.

Over the past 30 years, the Food Network has elevated many chefs to superstar status, with some going on to become cultural icons. Though we have sadly lost several of Food Network's biggest stars, others have simply faded from the spotlight. Many of the chefs who helmed the top Food Network shows we miss the most, like Emeril Lagasse and Paula Deen, have gone on to pursue careers that are less public or have walked away from the culinary scene altogether. Let's take a look at where they are now and what they're up to.

While countless cooking shows have come and gone on the Food Network, Gale Gand's iconic "Sweet Dreams" was the first of its kind to solely feature desserts. The program, which ran from 2000-2008, is among the cancelled cooking shows we wish would return. Not only did "Sweet Dreams" showcase Gand's expertise as an award-winning pastry chef and restaurateur, it featured her down-to-earth personality, which endeared her to audiences globally.

While Gand left Food Network, she did not leave the culinary world. She has authored eight cookbooks, including "Butter Sugar Flour Eggs," and co-founded one of Chicago's finest restaurants. In 1999, her restaurant, Tru, garnered international attention, which it held until it closed in 2017. In 2014, Gand joined forces with fellow Food Network stars The Hearty Boys, Dan Smith and Steve McDonagh, to establish a two-year pop-up restaurant known as Spritzburger.

Gale Gand is also a regular instructor teaching cooking classes at a number of locations, most notably Elawa Farm in Lake Forest, Illinois, Eataly in Chicago, and Zingerman's in Michigan. She also appears at food and wine festivals across the nation, leads travel tours, and partners with food brands, like Think Jerky. Her hobbies include her artisanal root beer business, Gale's Root Beer, as well as gardening, charity work, and helping her twin daughters adjust to college life.

Paula Deen is a prime example of a fall from grace. The celebrity chef was, at one time, among the most popular stars on the Food Network, hosting a slew of shows during the early 2000s, including "Paula's Home Cooking," "Paula's Party," and "Paula's Best Dishes." In 2013, the queen of Southern hospitality encountered a complete upheaval of her public life when she was accused of racial and sexual harassment by a former employee. While the case was eventually dropped and purportedly settled out of court, the damage was done. She was let go by the Food Network, which chose not to renew her contract, and lost a number of endorsements and publishing contracts, too.

Since then, Deen has slowly rebuilt her brand, creating her own online network, hosting a series of live and web-based shows, and establishing a small chain of restaurants, called Paula Deen's Family Kitchen, that currently has four locations. Her original restaurant, The Lady and Sons, which opened in Savannah, Georgia in 1989, is also still in operation and doing well. Additionally, Paula Deen continues to operate her non-profit, The Bag Lady Foundation, which was established in 2012 to assist women and families in need.

Among the first chefs to be on board with Television Food Network at its inception was Emeril Lagasse. The chef, who got his notoriety at the helm of the famed Commander's Palace in New Orleans, was known for his bold flavors, big personality, and signature use of catch phrases like "BAM!" and "Kick it up a notch." He hosted such legendary shows as "Essence of Emeril" and the now iconic "Emeril Live!," which made him practically a household name. In 2007, Emeril parted ways with the Food Network.

Since then, Lagasse has continued opening restaurants, writing cookbooks like "Farm to Fork: Cooking Local, Cooking Fresh," and appearing on television. Some of his more successful ventures included "Emeril Cooks" and "Emeril Tailgates," which appeared on the Roku channel, and "Eat the World with Emeril Lagasse," which aired on Amazon and garnered the chef multiple Emmy nominations and a win for Outstanding Culinary Program. Emeril continues to bring his best cooking tips to the masses via his online presence.

He is also incredibly passionate about his charity organization, the Emeril Lagasse Foundation. Founded in 2002, the mission of the organization has been to inspire, mentor, and enable youth to achieve their full potential. This is done through grants, a culinary garden and teaching kitchen, and the Aaron Sanchez Impact Fund, which specifically aims to give human services programming to Latino youth, together with opportunities for culinary arts education.

Another early star of the Food Network was Sara Moulton. This diminutive chef was mentored by the legendary Julia Child, founded the New York Women's Culinary Alliance, and became the executive chef at Gourmet magazine until its closure in 2009. She was the host of two shows, "Cooking Live" and "Sara's Secrets," which ran from 1995 until 2006, when she was unceremoniously fired from the network. Executives had decided to move in a different direction, refocusing the target demographic of programming to men aged between 15-35 years old. In an interview published by Eater, she explains, "They were more interested in really good looking people with really big personalities," prompting her to refocus her career.

Her post-Food Network endeavors include authoring four cookbooks, such as "Sara's Secrets for Weeknight Meals," and writing a popular blog on food, travel, and cooking. Moulton can also be seen on public television as the host of "Sara's Weeknight Meals," which is now in its 14th season. She can also be heard on a weekly segment for the podcast "Milk Street Radio," which she co-hosts with Chris Kimball and Alexis Gabriel Aïnouz, where she replies to inquiries from listeners about their food and cooking woes.

On a personal note, Moulton has long advocated for women's equality and representation in the culinary world. She famously wrote an op-ed for HuffPost Personal in 2018 where she accused French chef Maurice Cazalis of sexual harassment and exposed the insidious nature of sexism and misogyny in restaurant kitchens.

Not every chef who used to be on the Food Network can claim to be educated at an Ivy League school, but Ming Tsai can. A graduate of Yale, earning a degree in mechanical engineering, Tsai came to cooking by spending summers studying at the Cordon Bleu in Paris and eventually under the tutelage of Sushi Master Kobayashi. His first show on the Food Network, "East Meets West, Cooking with Ming Tsai," premiered the same year that he opened his award-winning restaurant Blue Ginger in 1998. He also hosted "Ming's Quest" before parting ways with the network in 2003, saying in an interview with Food Gal that he "didn't like where it was going ... I'm a chef, and I wanted to teach people how to cook."

Upon leaving Food Network, Tsai opened a second restaurant, Blue Dragon, in 2013. Though both restaurants have subsequently closed, the chef continues to educate fans about his signature culinary fusion style through cookbooks like "Simply Ming: Easy Techniques for East-Meets-West Meals," and his public television show "Simply Ming," which is in its 18th season. Tsai is also the founder of the brand MingsBings, a line of hand-held snacks that are plant-based and gluten-free.

Ming is also active in a number of charitable organizations, including the Family Reach and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He was also instrumental in enacting Bill S. 2701 into law in 2010, which helped usher in a new era of awareness regarding food allergies and sensitivities in professional kitchens.

Chef Aarón Sánchez was born into the culinary world. The son of Zarela Martinez, of Café Marimba fame and one of New York's most acclaimed Mexican chefs, Sánchez began cooking before he was even a teenager. After stints with Paul Prudhomme in New Orleans, the chef went on to open the award-winning New York-based pan-Latin restaurant Paladar in 2001 before landing a gig on Food Network.

Aarón Sánchez began his television career as a judge on the popular shows, "Chopped" and "Chopped Junior." He went on to host several other shows under the Food Network umbrella, including "Heat Seekers" and "Taco Trip," which ran on the Cooking Channel from 2014-2015. His more recent television appearances included hosting "MasterChef" and "MasterChef Junior" on FOX and "El Toque de Aarón" on Discovery Familia.

Chef Sánchez is the author of two cookbooks and a memoir, "Where I Come From: Life Lessons from a Latino Chef." He's also a partner in a number of restaurant ventures, including Johnny Sánchez, Showbird, and Adobo Cantina. He's also teamed up with Daredevil Tattoo in New York City, an internationally acclaimed tattoo shop and museum. One of his primary passions includes his charitable organization, the Aarón Sánchez Impact Fund, which seeks to uplift Latino youth through food, offering culinary education opportunities, hands-on experience, and mentorship.

Another of the earliest Food Network personalities who seems to have vanished into thin air is David Rosengarten. Rosengarten began his career at the network with the show "Food News and Views." His biggest claim to fame was as host of the popular show "Taste," not to be confused with ABC's "The Taste."

Rosengarten is the author of several cookbooks, including the James Beard Award-winning "It's All American Food." From 2001 to 2007, he helmed the acclaimed newsletter "The Rosengarten Report." Rosengarten was also a regular contributor to Forbes and the Huffington Post, though his most recent publications on each were in 2019 and 2017, respectively. He also had a YouTube channel for a couple of years, but his last video was added 10 years ago.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Rosengarten was involved in a wine import company by the name of Golden Ram and established its founding principle, "A David Rosengarten Wine for Food." While Golden Ram is still in existence, his name is nowhere to be found on its website. Additionally, the Wine4Food website is alive and well, but, again, Rosengarten's presence is seemingly absent. There have been no recent social media posts from the former Food Network star, and we were unable to find any recent interviews with the 75-year-old television personality.

Melissa d'Arabian had a somewhat unorthodox path to the Food Network. A former corporate finance executive and graduate of Georgetown University, she found herself the winner of season 5 of Food Network's hit series "The Next Food Network Star." This led to the premiere of her popular "Ten Dollar Dinners" in 2009 and many subsequent stints on the Food Network, including appearances on "Guy's Grocery Games," "Chopped," "Cutthroat Kitchen," "The Best Thing I Ever Ate," and "Food Network Challenge."

The mother of four daughters, d'Arabian has taken her top tips for eating well without spending a lot, together with her love of food, beyond the confines of the Food Network. She is the author of three books, including the New York Times bestselling "Ten Dollar Dinners" and her latest, "Tasting Grace," a book about how food can connect us to God, one another, and to ourselves, which was published in 2019.

Though her website has remained somewhat stagnant since 2019, according to social media, d'Arabian is keeping herself quite busy in recent years. She has been pursuing a graduate degree at Columbia University and was the co-producer of the off-Broadway show "White Rose: The Musical." She also remains active in her advocacy for suicide prevention after losing her mother to suicide as a young woman.

Few Food Network stars shone as brightly and for as long as Mario Batali. The chef became a fixture on the network when "Molto Mario" premiered in 1996. This was followed by appearances on a number of television food shows, including the popular ABC talk show "The Chew."

Just when Batali seemed at the height of his career with a number of successful restaurants and several Eataly locations opening globally, he faced a series of sexual misconduct allegations in 2017 that forced the celebrity chef off the air and effectively shut down his career. The chef was ousted from the B&B Hospitality Group, which he established with longtime partner and friend Joe Bastianich, and he shuttered a number of restaurants.

Though the claims were settled out of court, the court of public opinion was not as hospitable to the floundering chef. He had to retreat to his home, in a sleepy town in Michigan, where he lay low and remained off social media for some time. Since then, he has made a modest attempt at returning to the culinary world with a short-lived Zoom cooking class and a minority investment in a small restaurant located in Traverse, Michigan. Otherwise, he remains relatively quiet, with only an occasional post on Instagram, generally showing his latest travels or family meals.

Another Food Network star with a somewhat circuitous route to fame is Ellie Krieger. A registered dietitian nutritionist with an Ivy League education, Krieger is perhaps best known for her show "Healthy Appetite," which aired on the Food Network for five seasons beginning in 2006. While she no longer appears on the network, she remains every bit as active in the culinary world. 

Krieger has remained an authority on eating healthfully but deliciously. She is the author of seven award-winning cookbooks, including "You Have It Made," and has been published by The Washington Post, Fine Cooking, Food Network magazine, and USA Today. She also hosted "Ellie's Real Good Food" on public television for two seasons beginning in 2016.

Currently, Krieger is the host of the podcast "One Real Good Thing with Ellie Krieger," where she joins nutrition and lifestyle experts and celebrities for conversations about how to find the sweet spot of eating well for your mind and body. She is also quite active on social media, posting regular reels on Instagram including recipe features, nutrition tips, and healthier ways to cook your favorite foods.